All the news unfit to print.

Month

March 2013

I’ve been hanging out in the Communication College lately (They just have a better lobby. I love having six screen blaring news at me!) (No, I seriously love it.) and I fucking miss the adrenaline of news ed. I still read papers (SHOCKER!) and of course on line news, and BBC is pretty much the only news channel I watch, but I haven’t written for a pub in over a year (GASP/SOB).

So in order to increase productivity in regard to journalistic writing, and decrease my stress levels, I’m going to start writing again. Only I won’t be doing real articles.

This exercise will rely on passages from books as my source material. So I could pick a chapter from Sun Also Rises, Grapes of Wrath and War and Peace and do what I can. I would probably choose books that are more thematically similar, but we’ll see how it goes.

I’m doing this because I miss writing non-academic shit, but I don’t have the time to actually go out and interview. If I had that kind of time I would be freelancing the shit out of this place.

I may eventually move on to movies as source material too (since I have to watch them anyway….).

You’ve had tastes of Jane Austen from tv and movie adaptations, but are you ready for the the literary plunge? I think this book can serve as a gateway into reading Austen’s books. The author starts out as ambivalent toward dear Jane, but over the course of the book he shows that her novels are not only enjoyable (when given a chance) but still very relevant.

I like that he has a good balance of academic analysis and personal anecdotes. For its length it felt right that we don’t get attached to his family, friends and romantic partners. Instead Austen and her characters are given more importance, because, as he shows us, they are more than passing characters in another romance, they are fully-formed characters in novels, speaking to issues of the day. Continue reading “Book Review: A Jane Austen Education”→

I’ve been meaning to watch this show since it started, but since I’m kind of OCD about shows it’s taken me awhile to get around to it. Having finally caught up on Futurama I thought now was the time for Being Human to consume my life (since Grad School isn’t busy enough).

ANGST

I really liked the first season, we were given a trio of varying supernaturals that all had their own demons. Season one and two felt like the most balanced in terms of consistency with characters. Continue reading “Review: BBC’s Being Human 1-3”→